WPI and fraternity reach accord on parking

Worcester Polytechnic Institute has struck a deal with a fraternity that had objected to the college’s effort to ban parking along one side of Boynton Street, from Salisbury Street to Institute Road.

That agreement opened the door Wednesday night for the City Council Traffic and Parking Committee to unanimously approve the parking prohibition.

WPI petitioned the City Council for the parking prohibition last fall because the college believes the street is too narrow to allow parking on both sides of the street while also safely accommodating two lanes of traffic.

But members of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, located at Salisbury and Boynton streets, opposed the petition, contending it would have a major impact on the approximately 40 residents who live in the fraternity house at 99 Salisbury St.

With the loss of on-street parking on the east side of Boynton Street, fraternity members argued, they would be forced to scramble to find other overnight parking in the neighborhood, where parking availability is already at a premium.

When the three-member Traffic and Parking Committee heard the petition last fall, it urged WPI officials and fraternity representatives to get together to see if some kind of compromise can be worked out.

Stephen Madaus, a lawyer representing the college, informed the Traffic and Parking Committee Wednesday that a deal had been reached with the fraternity in which WPI will allow the residents to purchase resident parking passes at a cost of $100 per year.

The resident student parking passes will enable members of the fraternity to park in any of WPI’s five resident student parking lots, Mr. Madaus wrote in an email to the committee members.

Fraternity residents are not allowed to park in the on-campus parking lots because they are restricted to staff and commuting students. Those living in fraternities are not considered commuters, even though they do not live in campus housing.

Mr. Madaus said the number of parking passes that will be made available to the fraternity will be equal to one-third of the number of residents living there each year.

He said that is consistent with the city’s off-street parking requirement for student residence halls in an institutional zone — one-third of a parking space per dormitory bed — and is also what WPI currently provides to its on-campus residence halls.

WPI will also make available to the residents of the fraternity parking passes for WPI’s 189-space Dean Street garage, at a cost of $350 a year, he added.

The section of Boynton Street between Salisbury Street and Institute Road runs through the eastern part of the WPI campus, including in front of two residence halls and the campus police building.

Mr. Madaus said Boynton Street is only about 30 feet wide in that stretch.

Because of the width, he said, the city does not allow parking on either side of the street from Dec. 1 to April 1.